Re: Flood Deposits in Mesopotamia [Was: Special Creation]

*Now, as to exposed sediments, there is a problem with this. The flood was
quite recent. More recent than most of the other deposits. And when a
geologist makes a map, he doesn't map the soil which covers the bed rock.
The maps are usually of the bed rock.*

So the maps you're speaking of wouldn't show evidence of the flood in any
event if the evidence is in exposed sediments?

On 3/7/06, glennmorton@entouch.net <glennmorton@entouch.net> wrote:
>
> for Bill and David O.
>
> Bill Hamilton wrote:
>
> >>>Suppose the flood was so shallow that the ark only drifted a short
> distance before it ran aground, but that the flood covered such a wide area
> and the water was so wild that no one would dare leave the ark. Furthermore,
> who says the journey began near the Persian Gulf? Suppose it began above
> Jabel Judi (the place where Carol Hill (*
> http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2002/PSCF9-02Hill.pdf)proposes*<http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2002/PSCF9-02Hill.pdf)proposes>the ark landed), ran aground near Jabel Judi and stayed there til the flood
> subsided. <<<
>
> Would such a flood really have lasted a year? By the way, Bill, where are
> the flood sediments? This discussion reminds me a bit of when trying to get
> YECs to say where the flood sediments are in the global flood. They are all
> over the place with inconsistent layers bing the flood deposits. With the
> Mesopotamian flood, no one has sighted any widespread flood deposits, yet
> everyone knows that Mesopotamia is where the flood was so they must be
> there. Unfortunately, it is all a sham because there are no flood deposits
> in Mesopotamia.
>
> But also, as I have noted lately, evidence doesn't seem to much matter in
> apologetics. If there are no flood deposits or evidence of it, we still
> believe the flood was there.
>
> **
>
> Phil Metzger wrote:
>
> >>>
> Your arguments about deposits seem pretty strong. So I have a problem:
> how could the ark go to the mountains of Ararat unless there was a
> sufficient quantity of water in northern mesopotamia, enough water to make
> the deposits? If it wasn't for that ONE phrase in the Bible "in the
> mountains of Ararat" then there would be no problem, because then the ark
> could have gone somewhere else. So I look up what "Ararat" means
> and discover that Ararat (Urarutu) probably didn't even **exist** at the
> time of Moses when the text was written, since the kingdom of Urarutu didn't
> form until the 900's BC, after King David. In fact, (going partly from
> memory here) the other 2 or 3 references to "Ararat" in the Bible are
> from parts written after that date, such as the reference in Isaiah. If the
> word Urarutu didn't exist at the time of Moses, then either it is
> a mistranslation of RRT or else the word RRT is itself a gloss by later
> scribes after 1000 BC who mistakenly thought the ark went to Ararat and were
> trying to interpret an older geographical place name that was no longer well
> known. It is possible (and not unlikely IMO) that in place of "RRT" was
> originally a different name, one that referred to the Zagros mountains along
> the Persian gulf. If this **single** word is indeed a gloss, then **all**
> the problems with a mesopotamian flood seem to be resolved, aren't they?
> Basically the whole edifice of regional mesopotamian flood was built upon
> that one word, RRT, which in truth couldn't have meant Ararat in the first
> place, at the time it was written by Moses.<<<
>
> Except for seeing mountains. But, the problems you recognize now are the
> ones that I see. And I guess I have a big problem with throwing out the
> Biblical data points I don't like. If I had my druthers, the Bible would
> simply say,
>
> In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And God told
> Abraham to leave his country.....
>
> I would throw everything between Genesis 1:2 and 12:1 out. Thus, I could
> claim that all that was a gloss, a big mistake. Then we could have a
> reasonable bible which wouldn't require us to do intellectual headstands to
> understand it. So, when people start throwing out those inconvenient parts,
> why stop with one or two facts? Go whole hog and get rid of all the
> nonsense and fix that early genesis account.
>
> Now, to me, throwing things out is really just an ad hoc solution. It
> works, no doubt, but it is a wee bit inelegant.
>
> >>>Example, suppose I find a document that is supposedly ancient,
> purporting to have been written by George Washington and describing the
> journeys of Christopher Columbus. It tells us that Columbus visited Disney
> World. Obviously that part of the text can't be correct, since Disney World
> didn't exist at the time of Columbus nor at the time of George Washington.
> Likewise, the part of the text naming Uraratu can't be correct because it
> didn't exist at the time of Noah nor at the time of Moses.
>
> Thoughts?<<<
>
> I would say if a document purportedly by GW mentions Disney World, you
> could reasonably say it is a fake. It isn't true. One wouldn't wax eloquent
> about how it teaches the true theology and how the errors are an
> accommodation to the knowledge of Washington's day.
>
> >>>>Also, I have a question about the geologic map of Mesopotamia that you
> have on your website. Apparently this is a map that only shows the exposed
> geologic units, not naming all the units that lie beneath them. Well, in
> that case I would not expect to see flood deposits away from the river.
> That's because the eaolian deposits have had plenty of time to cover them.
> I would really expect the flood deposits (if they exist) to be a few meters
> beneath the shifting sand dunes.<<<<
>
> I have a couple of maps of Iraq. The one I referenced in a previous note
> here a couple of days ago, I sketched out the flood deposits of Iraq. That
> is the skinny fluvial sediments which follow the river courses.
>
> Now, as to exposed sediments, there is a problem with this. The flood was
> quite recent. More recent than most of the other deposits. And when a
> geologist makes a map, he doesn't map the soil which covers the bed rock.
> The maps are usually of the bed rock. And, I would still contend that even
> if there were buried fluival sediments beneath the aeolian, they would have
> been found and talked about in geology circles because so many people
> believe the flood of NOah was in Mesopotamia. The fact that there are no
> such discussions in the professional literature says loads about their
> non-existance.
>
>
>
Received on Tue Mar 7 10:10:03 2006